152 Different On-Land Fish Farm Systems and almost 20,000 actual on-land fish farms around the world - Updated July 11, 2016

I will begin adding new fish farms systems to this post, started May 10, 2016 because I have so many in the original post that blogspot.com is having difficulty adding and saving anymore.

This is the text of the 2012 post:

My list of mostly on-land, closed, most recirculating systems for
raising fish now has 142 different systems on it (and the Jan 20, 2016
update below adds thousands of firms in Europe). This represents more
than 10,000 actual farms on land, several thousand additional firms and
many different species of fish. This is a milestone, and although the
Norwegian fish farms, Marine Harvest, Cermaq (Mitsubishi) and Grieg
Seafood say it can't be done, they are obviously wrong, and don't want
to come out of the water. Enough is enough.We need our governments around the world to take fish farms out of our pristine oceans.

Denmark,
for instance, has half its farms as RAS systems - recirculating
aquaculture system. Added to the Kenyan system at the bottom (system 73)
will bring the current number of on-land farms to 10,000 around the
world. Finland never allowed fish farms in its ocean. They all have to
be on land.

There is no reason anymore to have
old-tech, open-net, in-ocean farms with their environmental degradation
problems and open sewage in our pristine oceans. Move forward to the
October to December period of 2015 because the Norwegian governement is
so angered by in-ocean fish farms that it is awarding free licences for
them to set up on land. In ocean licences now go for $9- to $12-million
in auction. So the free on-land licences are a significant subsidy as
well.

It is time to ask the question: why are fish
farms raising Atlantic salmon in BC where there are five species of
Pacific salmon? Why are fish farms in the ocean when all their problems
can be eliminated on land? Why are fish farms raising carnivores that
require the killing of many stocks of ocean fish that should be eaten by
people?

Here is a new 2013 document that shows on-land, circulating systems make more money than in-ocean net-pen operations: http://tidescanada.org/wp-content/uploads/files/salmon/workshop-sept-2013/NEWD1-11TrondRostenandBrianVinci.pdf.
It is a very technical document, but worth the effort of crunching
through it. You will note that different assumptions give different
results, but the last page says it all: production of fish on-land is
not more expensive than in-ocean (note that this is stated in the
negative based on the initial hypothesis statement)

SOS concluded that:
there is no technical or economic barrier to closed containment salmon
farm aquaculture for the production of salmon. Moreover, B.C. is
advantageously provisioned for catalyzing an industrial change and for
retaining the new emergent industry in B.C.

Here
is a link to the Kuterra on-land system in BC. This is a good costing
document, and retailers realize the difference and will stock Kuterra
salmon, but not Marine Harvest, Cermaq nor Grieg Seafood: See this
link: http://www.namgis.bc.ca/ccp/Pages/default.aspx.

Updated, Feb 5, 2015:
In Norway each fish farm must pay $1.69 Million to get a licence. [Now,
in Dec 2015, there are those free licences to set up on land.]
In BC, because we have very low fees, ($5171.25 X 130 = $67,000), it
means we are subsidizing every farm to the tune of $2 million. What this
means is that Norwegian-style fish farms have no argument for not being
put on land because of cost. They are subsidized now $2 million.

We taxpayers are subsidizing the entire industry of, say, 130 farms (80 operating at any given time) to the
tune of $260 million. This is 400% of the entire aquaculture contribution to
GPP of $61.9 Million. Fish farms need to be on land, just like the 10,000 other actual on-land farms around the world.

Updated, Oct 3, 2015: Here is a good organization of recirculating aquculture systems, in Norway no less: http://www.nordicras.net/Members/Industry. It is the Nordic Network on Recirculating Aquaculture Systems.

****Updated, Oct 14, 2015.
This is a really great summary Powerpoint presentation of a good 30
on-land RAS systems presented in Nanaimo, BC, Canada, 2015, along with
financials and metric tonnes: http://www.palomaquaculture.com/support-files/palom-aquaculture-steve-summerfelt-ras-update-june-5-2015.pdf. The
question is: how many is enough on-land fish farms before governments
pull all in-ocean farms out of the water for their high environmental
damage? After all, the only monetary advantage they have is getting
off Scot free from their sewage costs, and those are paid for by us, the
public, $10.4 Billion in BC alone. We don't want to pay.

Updated, Oct 21, 2015:
This is a cost-comparison, by Deloitte, of on-land, in-sea, and on-land
and in-sea at different ages. The report says that on-land is the way
of the future, because capital costs are lower than in-sea models and
operating costs will drop, and growing fish at market site reduces
shipping costs. It also sees a market for the three fish farm systems:http://fishfarminginternational.com/tag/land-based/.

Updated Jume 29, 2016: A good article on the Atlantic Salmon Federation and scientists in NS/NL calling for closed containment of the fish farm industry, and the problems with the Grieg Seafood's Placentia Bay development of 11 open pen farms: http://www.marketwired.com/press-release/-2135605.htm.

"We are going to collect the salmon's nutrient-rich
excrement so that it can be used for other purposes," said Aarskog.
"In addition to which, the solution is almost guaranteed to be
escape-proof and lice free."

143. Canada - Tilapia. There are on-land tilapia farms in Ontario, British Columbia and Alberta. This is many farms, but listed here once, taken from the Canadian Aquaculture Alliance site, that is mostly about environmentally-degrading in-ocean fish farms: http://www.aquaculture.ca/files/species-tilapia.php.

About Me

I won the national RODERICK HAIG- BROWN AWARD, 2016, for environmental writing, largely for this blog (www.fishfarmnews.blogspot.com) that has become a global portal for the environmental damage made by Norwegian-style fish farms.
I won the Art Downs Award for 2012 for sustained and outstanding writing on environmental issues, in my case, fish farms.
The award was based on 10 columns on fish farm issues in the Times Colonist newspaper, three public submissions to the Cohen Commission on Fraser sockeye and this blog, www.fishfarmnews.blogspot.com
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